


The Road To Hell

by Marindee



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Darkish!Molly, F/M, Ficlet, Gen, Multi, Originally Posted on Tumblr, TEH, in which Mar doesn't know how to tag
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-03
Updated: 2017-11-03
Packaged: 2019-01-29 03:37:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 835
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12622316
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Marindee/pseuds/Marindee
Summary: Who would ever look at meek little Molly Hooper and (correctly) think that she had the makings of a super criminal to surpass even Jim? Who would ever look at her, with her jumpers and big brown eyes and pitiful awkwardness, and see that she held London in her tight grip, playing a deadly game of “it’s the thought that counts”.





	The Road To Hell

**Author's Note:**

> This is inspired by a post on Tumblr, and I'm only just now getting around to cross-posting it.. :/  
> As always, my writing is unbetaed, so please forgive/LMK about any mistakes I've missed. On that note, enjoy!  
> -Mar
> 
> P.S. The link to the original post is https://mizjoely.tumblr.com/post/162049860397/marycage-love-is-one-coat-for-two-gettin

She never meant to get this far in – it was all innocent in the beginning, all perfectly planned kindness and helping. With Sherlock gone, who could the desperate turn to? Not John, who was absorbed in licking his wounds and neglecting every other connection he’d made in his time in London. Greg Lestrade was busy enough, defending his using Sherlock’s services. Martha Hudson was too distraught over the loss of both of her pseudo-sons.

 ~~~~So it had to be her. Even so, she the response the four hand-written information sheets she posted was honestly astounding. How much had gone unnoticed, how many cases unsolved? Molly knew she was no Holmes, but you didn’t get to where she was by being an idiot. She could hold her own.

And so it began. She took simpler cases at first, missing jewelry, a missing persons case here and there. Until Patricia Hunt turned up on her slab, thirteen hours and twenty-seven minutes after messaging @MHDetec.tive regarding her boyfriend’s sudden personality changes – was his newfound irritability and seeming indifference because of something to do with his promtion at work, which he was oddly reluctant to talk about? Or was she just worrying over nothing? And could Det. MH please respond soon? She was terribly worried…

Nineteen hours and eleven minutes after Patricia Hunt sent a message to Det. MH, Jeremiah “Jerry” Scott was found dead, apparently having committed suicide by way of his aunt-in-law’s prescription pain medication and a bottle of hard liquor. Strangely enough, on his bedside table lay a note, explaining that he couldn’t live with himself after killing his lover. While this wasn’t overly weird by itself, from a contract killer, it was odd indeed. And for him to have laid out his finances and kill list? Odd, but not unimaginable.

Lestrade had the body sent to St. Barts, as he knew Molly would find any inconsistencies. Connections were valuable indeed.Molly did the proper analysis of the corpse, marked it as suicide and moved on.

Three weeks, two days, nine hours, and forty-six minutes after Jerry Scott was cremated, a sex trafficking ring was disbanded by means of 104 lbs of C4 explosives – a rival criminal organization had somehow organized a false meeting of the heads of operation in a building that was absolutely impregnated with things-that-go-boom. Even more astonishingly, none of the exploited women had been present – there had been a remarkable lack of showing by the clients who’d had very nearly every girl booked. As one of the best in the business, of course Dr. Molly Hooper was called in for the identification process.

And wasn’t it addicting, to play both sides? Who would ever look at meek little Molly Hooper and (correctly) think that she had the makings of a super criminal to surpass even Jim? Who would ever look at her, with her jumpers and big brown eyes and pitiful awkwardness, and see that she held London in her tight grip, playing a deadly game of “it’s the thought that counts”.

Molly was approached by the woman who would become her right hand and best friend in a rather unorthodox way, but not all companionships can begin with a firefight and the breaking of another of the spokes that held the wheel that held the bicycle of Jim’s influence up off the ground, with a heavy dose of bad metaphors on the side. Then named Felicity Harris, the working-towards retirement assassin approached the elusive MH with an offer; her last few years of services in return for assistance in neutralizing the emerging threats from her past. With newly free and renamed Mary Warstan by her side, MH’s generally-benevolent reign of tyranny seemed unstoppable. The counter was, of course, the immovable object; the timely return of detective-come-judge-jury-and-executioner (the tall one).

Two years, seven months, three weeks, eighteen hours and forty minutes after his jump, Sherlock Holmes’ resurrection was announced to Molly by the man himself ambushing her in the locker room. While she rubbed at the sparring-with-trained-assassin bruise on her shoulder, the long shadow and nearly-imperceptible breathing betrayed the surprise.

“You have been busy indeed, Mol-”

“I really should have seen this com-” Both paused when their sentences overlapped.

“How did you manage to slip under my radar, Hooper? Certainly you weren’t active in _this_  capacity in my presence.”

“Mmm. It’s simple enough, Sherlock. You know how. You want to know _why_ , don’t you.”

He tilted his head up and to the side, as if changing the angle would reveal more information. Maybe it would.

“For some strange reason, I’m not feeling very generous with my secrets at the moment. Rather like you in that way, one might be tempted to think.”

“Indeed.”

“Two years. Almost three. I couldn’t wait forever on a dead man.”

“Not quite as dead as you thought, it would seem.”

“So it would seem.”

A pause.

“I do look forward to figuring out the ‘why’, you realize. Very much.”

“I’m sure.”

Another pause.

“Fancy some chips?”

 

* * *

 


End file.
